The State of Thy Heart (Part II)

For those who may have forgotten, I was scheduling a procedure a couple weeks ago for my heart condition. As of Thursday, I’m hopefully free of it!

The procedure, called an ablation study, involves an electrophysiologist (EP) and a team of others running a thin tube (often called a catheter) and related instruments up the femoral veins from the leg, in this case to go up into the heart. With x-ray mapping and the like, they use this path to find and excite electrical pathways in the heart. Sadly, though sedated, I had to be awake for this part: feeling a harsh pain as they used electricity on me, and at one point even had me quasi-thrashing/convulsing or some other sort of bizarre spasms I can’t fully describe…let’s just say I understood at that moment why they restrained me before starting!

I was put out with anesthesia for the remainder of the procedure, mind you. Once they’d found the bad pathway (my condition involved having one that didn’t belong), they used radiation to burn it out so it can’t be used anymore. When I woke up, the first thing a nurse said to me was, “How’s it feel not to have it anymore?”

I’m about four days post op now, slowly recovering. Though it was a same day procedure, I was so stiff from being restrained even afterwards for four hours (it’s awkward that my dad basically had to feed and gimme liquid because I wasn’t allowed to move while in the recovery room prior to discharge)…I only fully recognized I was post op on Friday. Sure, I ended up with the usual fever, some heart pain (your heart’s gonna hurt when they were electrifying it so often!) and general soreness, but to be honest, the thing I think about most is the giant bruise on my leg.

It’s not that it bothers me. Quite the opposite in fact! I took pictures of it for my memory. That bruise is like a battle scar to me. I never want to forget this surgery, because even if I’d put it off for 12 years…I’m so glad it’s finally done. I’ve thought about sharing the picture I took here, but even I know that might be a little awkward.

Thank you for being here with me during my journey of recovery!
I hope to restart the 101 Challenge from challenge 13 in my next post. Please look forward to it!